Chapter Two
Chet
“Can I help you?”
I turn from admiring the bustling street scene outside a stylish corner office.
In the doorway stands a rakish hunk looking twelve steps out of place in casual business attire, his long, rangy body and lean, chiseled face more befitting a Hollywood hunk than some local-yokel property manager in Arm Pit, Kentucky.
“Mr. Palmer?” I ask, with only a quick glance at the glossy, laminated press kit in my hand. Sounds like a minor thing, but after the morning I’ve had? Quite a feat, let me tell you.
Country Boy blushes and inches another step further into the office, off the rack loafers whispering across the laminate flooring beneath their size twelve (hubba, hubba) soles.
“That ... that was my Dad’s name,” he blurts, cheeky southern accent dripping with pure honey glaze. I struggle not to shiver at all the racy romcom tropes buzzing through my mind at the moment. “I ... I’m Grady.”
Grady. Fucking perfect. Grady. Because of course he is, the sexy little country bumpkin’. Of course he is.
I nod at his extended hand, taking another step closer to grip it. It’s warm, soft, and smooth, but also? Strong as fuck. I’ve shaken a thousand hands in my time at Wild West Studios, and no one has ever given me a grip quite so firm before.
“Grady? Palmer?” I tease before releasing my hand from his strong, masculine grip, tempted to smooth out the startled bones but resisting at the last minute. “So ... also Mr. Palmer?”
“Sure, yeah, technically, but...” Grady waves one big, raw-boned hand toward a chair across from his desk. It’s clean, uncluttered, borderline sterile, like maybe he doesn’t spend much time in here?
I sink into it a moment before he eases down onto the corner of his desk, cool teacher style. My overstressed little heart flutters at my close proximity to his obviously packed crotch. “So, how can I help you today?”
I tut-tut playfully because quietly? Subtly?
My gaydar is kind of bouncing off the charts right now.
It’s nothing obvious, per se. No pride socks hiding beneath the predictably cuffed hems of his predictably khaki slacks.
No rainbow-colored friendship bracelets around his gently furred wrist. No stolen glances in the quiet office or blushing cheeks beneath his hungry gaze, just .
.. something about long, lean, sexy Grady that makes me think we might play for the same team?
“I’m Chet Forrester,” I say patiently, partially so that I won’t get all gushy sitting in front of him, but also because honestly? He should know this shit already. “From Wild West Studios.”
Grady acts appropriately star-struck. “No shit? You mean, like, an actual real live studio, studio?”
I chuckle at his Gee Golly Willikers response. “Yes, Grady, I ... have you not been briefed on any of this yet?”
He snorts and then mutters as if to himself, shaking his head so that his sandy brown curls dance across his unlined forehead. “Briefed. Dossier. I feel like this is the dang White House or something all of a sudden.”
He stands slowly, inching around the corner of his desk as if tired of only half his ass resting on a solid surface. The chair he sinks into is squeaky, stiff, and from the look on his pretty boy face? Seems downright uncomfortable.
Again, the whole scene is giving off first day on the job vibes.
I sigh. Grady sure is pretty, and oh how nice it would be to hear that smooth, southern twang muttering sweet nothings in my ear all night, but I’m not in town to get railed breathless by some country bumpkin’, no matter how big his long, veiny hands are or how cute his sexy little dimples might be.
“Look, let’s start over, Grady,” I huff. Then, when his jaw sets stiffly, and his soft green eyes cloud menacingly, I beam a quick Hollywood smile and add, “Can I call you Grady?”
“Well,” he oozes, as if we’re about to set off on some cattle rustling adventure together. “That’s a far sight better than Mr. Palmer, I suppose.”
“Sorry. Where I come from, we do things a tad more ... professionally. You know? Mister. Sir. Things like that.”
He frowns at my irritable clap back. Yeah, fine, sure.
Probably not my finest hour but ... jet lag, anyone?
You try making a great first impression after a sleepless night and a red-eye flight over the fly-over states.
He waves one of those big, strong hands around the spacious office.
“Does it look like we don’t do things professionally around here, Chet? ”
My eyes widen because dayum ... Mr. Palmer’s got some balls on him, does he?
“No, Grady.” I sigh, struggling to reel this disastrous meeting back in.
“I’m sure you and the rest of the team here at Palmer Properties are more than professional.
I’m just wondering why you’re not prepared for this little meeting when, after all, your office set it up for you. ”
“That would have been my stepmother,” he explains patiently, leaning back in his desk chair and tenting long, tanned fingers beneath his sturdy chin. “And you just missed her, so ... care to fill me in?”
I cluck my tongue and wave my press release toward him menacingly. “Fill you in?” I gush. “Fill you in? Grady, we’re a week away from the event, and you’re just now getting up to speed?”
Grady considers my tirade for half a second before blinking, flaring his nostrils, and standing abruptly.
I think for a split second he’s about to launch across the desk and throttle me silly—and not in a good way, mind you—when he takes three quick strides across the floor and swings the already open door wider.
“All right, Chet,” he huffs, waving a big hand toward the sudden opening. “It was nice meeting you, and I wish you luck with your big event and all—”
“It’s our event,” I huff, shoving the press kit in my distressed messenger bag before yanking it off the floor and sliding it over one shoulder.
“Yours and mine. You may not be up to speed yet, but you best be by this time tomorrow because if you don’t, Grady?
Wild West Studios will hand over this event to one of your competitors. ”
Grady chuckles breezily, towering over me by a good three to four inches.
“That’s rich,” he croons as we square off in his doorway, just a couple of old gunslingers in a dick-measuring contest. “Who you going to go to instead, Chet? Ralston Realtors? Maybe those hayseeds can help you with your little event. Oh wait, that’s right.
They’re not open on Mondays. Or Tuesdays, for that matter.
Appointment only, unfortunately. But even then, only if you’re interested in one of those new McMansions up on Buzzard’s Peak.
Maybe they didn’t mention that in your precious press release, huh? ”
“Buzzard’s Peak?” I stammer, forgetting for a moment that we’re supposed to be fighting. “Is that ... even real? Did you just make that up?”
“Do I look like I’m in the mood to be making shit up right about now, Chet?” Grady’s tone might be quasi-playful, but his big green eyes are still hooded, and his chiseled jaw is clearly set.
“Fine,” I huff, wishing Grady didn’t look so tall, dark, and fuckable when he was angry. “Then maybe someone else in this hick town can help us if you can’t.”
“Never said I can’t help you out,” he reminds me. “Just that you wouldn’t take the time of day to help me get up to speed, that’s all.”
I roll my eyes and inch past him to stand in the hallway. “I shouldn’t have to, Grady. Not if you were half the—”
The door slams in my face. Slams. In my face.
My! Fucking! Face! A soft, breezy chuckle from behind me interrupts a string of curses from my lips, only half of them out loud.
I turn, fists balled at my side, only to find an honest-to-goodness cowboy smiling at me from the doorway of yet another office.
“Sorry about that,” says the cowpoke, a business card extended in one burly, hairy knuckled hand. “He’s ... new.”
“No shit?” I huff, snatching the card from his thick fingers. “And this is?”
“My card,” the cowboy says, inching into the hallway as we stand nearly eye to eye.
His cowboy hat casts his lean face in shadows, not helped much by the midnight dark beard thick and bushy around the lower half of his face.
“I’m Parker. Head property manager around these parts, and if you want to get your event done, and done right?
You’ll probably want to spend a little more time jawin’ with me and less with, well . .. Grady.”
We both turn our eyes toward the door, as if hoping it might open and Grady might pop his head out, winking one of those big green eyes before drawling, “Just kidding, Chet. Come on back in and sit a spell!”
When it doesn’t, I sigh. Parker still smiles, neither of us with much left to say. Just then, my stomach rumbles, practically alerting half the office suite to my sudden discomfort. Parker chuckles, scratching his beard before nodding down the hallway toward the reception suite up front.
“The Cracked Egg Café down yonder a spell,” he oozes and somehow? Using about half a dozen context clues, I somehow manage to figure out that he’s giving me directions for somewhere nearby to eat. “Round the corner and on the right? Might fill that empty belly of yours.”
“Fine, yes, I just...” We both glance at the office door.
“No worries,” Parker insists as I pocket his business card in the side of my messenger bag. “You’ll both get along fine once he cools off and you, uh ... take it down a notch?”
His eyes are wary, but his jaw is set the same way Grady’s was in his office doorway. You know, before he shut the fucking door in my face! I start to argue, start to remind him just who he’s dealing with here, start to name drop, and then suddenly realize: that’s just what he’s talking about.
“Fine, yes, I just ... thanks, Parker.” I extend a hand.
He shakes it even more forcefully than Grady had. Damn, I marvel, slinking it back in twenty pieces.
Don’t any of these Neanderthals know how to read a room?
“And until then,” he reminds me as I start to inch quietly back toward the front of the office. “Maybe drop back by tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure he’s good and prepped by then.”
I nod, shrug, and drift away, not quite certain, but then again—what choice do I have?